It happened... there might have been a wolf in there

 People weren't sure how to interact with the space at first. They asked me what they should be doing. I instructed them to walk around; to listen, to look, to see how their bodies felt in different points in the space and what shadows and sounds were like. Some people started closing their eyes and having a friend guide them around, which was really cool. People liked the audios a lot, or they liked the light and projectors a lot, or they enjoyed both. Some people played along, some were suspicious. Some laughed, and some were very serious. Some people stood by the trash cans with speakers. Some sat on the edge of the beds and let the light from the projectors fall over their faces. Many people made shadow puppets. People hung out with each other outside of the space. People came in and left and then came back. People talked to each other. People looked at each other in confusion (or repulsion?)

People asked. they wondered. they looked, they listened. they left.

Dawn Kasper Research

 Dawn Kasper is a visual artist working across genres of performance, installation, sculpture, drawing, photography, video and sound.

Link to presentation: Dawn_Kasper.pptx

Some important themes in her work that I focused on were body as the medium, creativity as a process, and blending of different spheres. Through the environments and installation spaces that Kasper creates to put her body within she confronts the boundaries of the viewer and asks for participation in a different way.

 

In her Evil series and death scenes, she situates herself in bloody and gory violent scenes. She is reenacting her own death, and she is making the viewers in the gallery space come face to face with and try to understand the presence of her "dead" body in the space. 

Kasper's "This could be something if I let it" show in the 2012 Whitney Biennial is one of the things that interested me the most in focusing on Kasper's installation works. This is part of her "Nomadic Studio practices," and experiment that she started after losing her job and access to a permanent studio space. For the Biennial, she moves her whole studio into the gallery space and lives/works (but does not sleep) in the museum. This is a very interesting blur between public and private (especially in the creative capacity). She is also interested in sound, and interactions between people; breaking barriers between the artist as an "all-knowing force" or whatever, and the viewer as the perpetually stupid bystander to the genius of the artist.

Video posted about the project by the Whitney (link)

another video about the biennial

This work also really interested me, Kasper's Music for hoarders. She uses soundscape and the principals of overwhelming/overstimulating the viewers/participants.

music for hoarders (video)

The last thing listed in this blog post (but really, what got me interested in Dawn Kasper in the first place) are these photos from a performance piece she did about body as object.

I actually emailed her about this piece because I wanted a little more information and she actually responded! And sent me this video.

video from dawn kasper about body as object performance

This is my long list of sources referenced/cited:

“#217 Dawn Kasper : The Wolf and the Head on Fire - Portikus Frankfurt.” Portikus.de, 2019, www.portikus.de/en/exhibitions/217_the_wolf_and_the_head_on_fire. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                Albertini,     Rosanna. Dawn Kasper from DEAD OBJECTS -to RECREATE LIFE.

                   “Bot Detection.” Artlinkart.com, 2026, www.artlinkart.com/en/artist/wrk_sr/706dvzsi/b5aa. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                    “Dawn Kasper.” Whitney Museum of American Art, 2026, whitney.org/exhibitions/2012-biennial/Dawn-Kasper. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                    Dawn Kasper. “NEED for SELF.” YouTube, 4 Sept. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkAhbBkSjO0. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                       “Dawn Kasper - Music for Hoarders - HONOR FRASER.” HONOR FRASER, 31 Mar. 2023, honorfraser.com/programming/music-for-hoarders/. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                       Green, Penelope . “Please, Don’t Feed the Artist.” New York Times, 25 Apr. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/garden/dawn-kasper-at-the-whitney-biennial.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                    “Inside the Biennale in 360° | Ep. 8: Dawn Kasper.” Facebook.com, 2016, www.facebook.com/artsy/videos/10155422876558407/. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                    Kasper, Dawn. “This Could Be Something If I Let It 2012 - Dawnkasper.com.” Dawnkasper.com, 2024, dawnkasper.com/This-Could-Be-Something-If-I-Let-It-2012. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                “Redling Fine Art—Dawn Kasper.” Redlingfineart.com, 2016, redlingfineart.com/artists/dawn-kasper. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                   Simonini, Ross. “Dawn Kasper Hears You.” Artreview.com, 2019, artreview.com/ar-december-2019-simonini-dawn-kasper/. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                      Snow, Philippa. “Dawn Kasper’s Death Scenes by Philippa Snow.” The Paris Review, 31 Oct. 2022, www.theparisreview.org/blog/2022/10/31/dawn-kaspers-death-scenes/. Accessed 20 May 2026.

                    The Museum of Contemporary Art. “Dawn Kasper - the Artist’s Studio - MOCAtv.” YouTube, 24 Oct. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg50VtFsdFI. Accessed 20 May 2026.